The possibility that Bermuda could have no fewer than five parties contesting the next General Election says more about dissatisfaction with the Island's two major parties than it does about the talents or abilities of their potential replacements.

The three "third parties" are the National Liberal Party, the People's Party begun by Mitchell Watson and the party being engineered by Khalid Wasi, also known as Raymond Davis.

Having five parties assumes that the National Liberal Party, which is to all intents and purposes finished, could manage to put to put up a couple of candidates.

The other two groups speak to dissatisfaction with the main parties.

Mr. Watson's party's creation comes about almost entirely because of the Progressive Labour Party's failure to meet the needs of its core supporters, especially on housing, but on other social issues as well.

It is unlikely that the People's Party, assuming it gets off the ground, would win any seats in a General Election, but it could take away votes from the PLP in some key constituencies where traditional PLP supporters want to send a protest vote to the PLP's leadership.

Mr. Wasi's plans speaks more to dissatisfaction with the United Bermuda Party's current leadership and the perception that it cannot defeat the PLP.

That is reflected in its own policies, which are quite thin at this stage and little different from the mainstream UBP's. It wants more referendums, but so does the UBP. It wants to get away from race-based politics, but the UBP says it does as well.

Mr. Wasi points to the fact that the United Bahamas Party could not defeat the Progressive Liberal Party in the Bahamas and was replaced by the Free National Liberal Party, which did. But Mr. Wasi forgets that the FNM was as rudderless as its predecessor until Hubert Ingraham defected from the PLP and took over its leadership. Only then did the FNM win an election.

In truth, the new parties are likely to meet the same kind of defeat that almost all third parties do in the Westminster system. In a first past the post system, minority parties will always struggle, unless they represent an identifiable ethnic group concentrated in a geographic area, like the Bloc Quebecois in Canada.

Otherwise, third parties must fight to carve out a distinct identity and they always face the risk of being pushed out of their positions by their bigger rivals. Certainly that is the experience of the Liberal Democrats in Britain, who now find themselves being squeezed by the centre-left politics of Tony Blair's New Labour and by the centre-right policies of David Cameron's "new" Conservatives. That does not leave much room.

But the mere fact that these new parties are being formed should be a warning to the main parties, if they needed one, that neither are doing enough to inspire the voters or to give the voters a feeling that they are in touch with their needs and desires.